The Quest Continues with the Electrical Demon

[bikechump]

Hi its me again, im seeking more help concerning my electrical fault after coming up unsuccessful. i will give a recap but if you want to read my old post its under "electrical problems getting me down."

MY OLD POST

bike: 82gs 400

scenario: replaced o-rings in intake boots, reassembled, fired right up, allowed her to warm up, died after a minute or two, attempted to restart, no lights..

The fuse holder was my first concern as sometimes you would have to press the fuse in hard for it to make a proper connection. So off i went and replaced the holder and WOW it worked, great. I then decided to solder the connection, note i was using the hot iron kind and found the insulating plastic around the wire to somewhat melt. I then turned the key and nothing:shock:
(fuse was still intact)

telling myself it was something simple and not knowing much about electronics i figured i had put too much heat into the fuse holder, so off i went to buy another one. and guess what? nothing, zero.

I probably wouldn't be as upset if i hadn't just payed for registration, bought all my gear, and had a deadline for the bike. I have roughly two weeks until I move to Vancouver from Victoria and the whole plan was to use her as my mode of transport to and from school.

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated [-o<

vince.



QUESTION

I checked the battery voltage and came up with 12.5V, i cleaned the grounding cable that went to the battery from the engine, cleaned battery terminals, checked for any loose connections under the tank, and tried bypassing the fuse entirely with no avail.

My question now is where do i go from here? Im so confused to what it could be, any help would be great.


vince.

[oldschoolorange]

Do you have a wiring diagram?

I am looking at one right now and see what I can come up with

[oldschoolorange]

I would attempt to jump the ignition switch to see where that gets you. If it is shot you can get an aftermarket one for about $40.00. Then check all of your connectors by jumping them. Just leave the key in the on posisition and start bypassing things. check for contitunity in your ignition wiring as you may have a break somewhere. Also check your battery ground

[GS850_Coug]

COMPLETELYdead electrically, check voltage at the ignition switch. If none, check voltage at fuse holder. If none, suspect wiring harness between fuse holder and battery. If you have voltage to fuse holder, but not to switch, there is a problem in wiring harness between switch and fuse holder. If you have voltage to both places, some of your accessories (lights, etc) should work. If this is the case, we need to do more testing, but check those first.

[nabrams]

I said in your original post "If no power even after bypassing then you've got to go through the arduous task of verifying every circuit in the ignition system (using a multimeter). This has been discussed exstensively in other posts."

And that's the painful truth of it, and I know you're reluctant to hear it (and I would be too). You need to test voltage/current starting from the source (battery) and work your way closer and closer to the item that's got no power to see where along the way the voltage disappears. You'll need a multimeter. You'll need a wiring diagram.

You need to bite the bullet and do the above. You can put together a simple flashlight circuit to practice with the multimeter. Attach wires to the battery to see what the voltage looks like when there is power. Cut one of the wires, to see that you'll get no voltage. A break in the circuit will prevent current from flowing to the light bulb. Your bike is no different. There's a break in the circuit somewhere.